Steve James, in his first blues instruction video, demonstrates a mandolin banjo. I was ignorant of them prior to seing this. Having seen a few more on eBay selling for surprisingly low prices we decided to find out how they played and sounded for ourselves. We bought one in playing condition and one needing a new skin head and a few minor repairs and parts replacement. They were quite inexpensive and the parts are easy to come by. I think that each one cost about $50. adding parts and shipping maybe a little less than $100 to bring one up to playing condition. The one problem most of them have is a bent "dowel stick" running through the pot. This affects playability so it has to be dealt with. They are pretty easy fix for this if you have any woodworking skills. Or even if you don't. This repair was discussed on the Cafe recently. I haven't played one enough to decide whether I really enjoy it as a blues instrument for the long haul but for now it us fun and I would encourage anyone who is interested to give it a try... The price is right. Bart
When my wife and I decided to explore mandolin banjos we also bought a tenor banjo out of curiosity. It turns out to be excellent for blues. By comparison with the mandolin the tenor banjo, having only 4 strings, plays easily and allows for almost effertless string bending. It is tuned exactly the same as a mandolin only an octave lower. Again I have to get used to it before I decide how it fits my own interest... but for now it is a fun instrument which shows a lot of potential for blues. Bart
Here's a ragtime piece with Dennis Pash playing the mandolin banjo. Clearly the mandolin banjo has very little sustain so it probably works best with accompaniment of some sort, in this case guitar. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXRS2GcuHZg Bart
I got a mandolin banjo recently and really couldn't knock a decent tune out of it. The instrument - an early Vega Little Wonder - was fine. I just couldn't manage the lack of sustain and the difficulty getting clean-sounding notes above the 5th fret. Playing a tune on it - blues or otherwise - was a real work out so I released it back into the wild...
Ed... Wish you had released it my way... I think that is supposed to be a decent brand... isn't it? I do understand your comments though... I am struggling like you did to get a clean note all the way up the neck. Mine are basicly no-name brands The only one I can identify is a "Slingerland Professional"... Yeh, Sure... If there is any bend at all in the "dowel stick" running through the pot it is impossible to get a clean note. Just fretting it a little ways up the neck bends the string. New banjos and and mandolin banjos have an easy adjustment which pretty much eliminates that problem as the whole pot can be adjusted relative to the neck very easily. I have not yet adjusted mine but I will shortly. I really hate to alter anything 100 years old but I want them players, not as antiques. Bart
I have another old no-name one with a rather large pot and a mandolin bridge, so the sound is bassy and muffled. There's a pic here
Very interesting mando-banjo... Nice looking... you speak of a muffled sound... Have you tried it with the resonater off??? The only one of mine which has a back is actually a tenor banjo. Mine sounds very good with the metal nickel(?) resonater back on... I haven't had it long enough to evaluate whether it sounds better or worse with the back on or off. But it sure looks cool with the metal back on. All that nice shiny metal must make it sound about twice as good, don't you think? Bart
Dennis Pash technique as revealed by the worn banjo head. I find it kind of interesting to examine the wear pattern on Pash's banjo head. He drags his little finger on the head and the wear pattern reveals where he plucks and how much he plucks in which area. I just love this kind of trivia. Bart
Today I was working on one of my eBay banjo mandolins, I installed a new fretboard and discovered that with the original nut my outside g string was difficult to fret beyaond about four frets up the neck. a slight bend in the dowel stick left the outside g string dangerously close to the edge so that up the neck it tended to slip off the fret and sound dead. To get the banjo playing immediatly I removed the outside g string and the the corresponding strings accross the neck so that I ended up with a four string banjo mandolin. I will fix the problem later, but in the meantime the four stringed banjo mandolin is much easier to play blues with than the eight stringed banjo mandolin. and in my opinion sound a bit better for blues as well. It is far easier to bend notes. I am impressed enough with my four stringed banjo mandolin that I am tempted to leave it as a four string. I am sure I could quick fix the problem by fiddling with the bridge and if I only had one mando I would do a more exacting repair. but for now I have two interesting and different sounding mandolin banjos. I have another I am working on so I will leave it as an eight string. and have the option of either mandolin. Bart
Eddie sheehy: Regarding your Vega "Little Wonder": What you discribed as the problem with the tone of your "Little Wonder" sounds exactly like the problem I had with both my own mandolin banjos, They played and sounded good a few frets up the neck nut but went dead after that, and the elevated strings made them hard to fret.. On one the dowel stick was so bent that the fretboard extension was touching the skin head. Tone was best described as "dead". Straightening the dowel stick brought the action to normalcy and it now plays quite well all the way up the neck. My other mandolin banjo ( the "Slingerland Professional" had a similar but less severe problem and when I straightened the dowel stick it improved the tone and action up to normalcy. They are both very nice sounding mandolin banjos. Both have metal tone rings. One has a calf skin and one a goat skin head. If there is a difference in tone from the different skins I am not aware of it. Though our calf skin head is thicker than the goat skin. I also found that tightening the calf skin head made an enormous difference on one of them. The head was good when I bought it. I have no idea how old it is... but it sounds fine now. I guess, because the skin head responds to humidity, they have to be adjusted often. Which is a pain, but I'll get used to it. Bart
Banjo-mandolins are more banjos than mandolins. Head tension, the dowel stick are all banjo design issues. The other weakness tends to reside with the tuning machines. Often they need adjustments or replacement to function in a manner consistent with functionality. The new Ragtime Skedaddler's CD is the best new recording I have heard with a banjo-mandolin. I would guess that hey have the head stuffed with something much like an old time banjo player is apt to do. This attenuates the volume and can sweeten the tone somewhat. I have a friend with a Vega and a SS Stewart. That Vega is loud!
RobBob: Frequent retuning is the name of the game with skin heads as they shrink and expand with humidity. I would think that the vinyl heads used on many banjos would reduce the retuning of strings and retensioning of the head. On mine I bought skin heads just to be age appropriate for the instruments. On the Slingerland I used calf skin and on my tenor banjo I used goat skin. Sound-wise I am pleased with them both, but appearance-wise the goat skin is a little more consistant in opaqueness than the calf skin, which is translucent in some areas. Apparently the calf skin head is thicker and thus maybe a little more durable than the goat skin. Yes,,, the Ragtime Skedaddler's do some nice work. They have several full lenth samples on youTube. This group sets up an interesting comparison between the mandolin and mandolin banjo tone-wise. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQVi0One8Fc Bart
RobBob: I noticed you carefully spelled out "banjo-mandolin". My wife keeps scoldiing me about my arbitrary mixing mandolin-bango, banjolin, and banjo mandolin. I feel properly scolded and promise to make an effortto call them banjo-mandolins. Bart
As has been said, the banjo-mando is a wily beast to tame. Standard banjos alone are a bit peculiar with their idiosyncrasies in intonation, but add the high-tension and short scale to the crude skin-spanned pot and you've got a potent mixture! Pretty easy to get a funky sound from these. But the great thing about banjos is that they invite tinkering--indeed, if you're not tinkering with your banjo, you're not trying : you can easily adjust neck angle, head tension, bridge height...everything but the frets on the neck (I've even defretted some banjos) to adjust intonation. For the plunky banjo sound, nothing does it like a banjo. Some things just sound better with banjo
"... if you're not tinkering with your banjo, you're not trying..." I am beginning to see the truth in that statement,,, but I enjoy tinkering as much as playing... so much so that when I get everything "right" then I have to have a another banjo-mandolin or mandolin to "fix". My wife told me this morning... "We've got to start selling some of these instruments." "Yah, sure" says I, "Just as soon as I fix up the one I bought on eBay yesterday."... Not too exciting, but it has a cloud tailpiece which I have been itching for for about a year. Bart
Well... We reeived the eBay banjo-mandolin with the beautiful like-new cloud tailpiece, and yes, it would work perfectly on my Stradolin mandolin but unfortunately the rest of the bango-mandolin is in perfect condition too... and I have nothing of that quality to replace the cloud tailpiece on that instrument if I remove it... so I am back to square one on searching for a cloud tailpiece for my Stradolin. The only problem with the banjo-mandolin is the tuner knobs (celuloid) have decomposed over time to the point where they simply crumble when trying to turn them. But that is an easy fix... I hope... Bart
Dave Grisman plays one on "Stealin" on the "Shady Grove" album with Jerry Garcia. I believe Garcia describes is as "truly obnoxious" and "perfect". It strikes me as one of those "cool in small doses" instruments. You might get more use out of a resonator mandolin. The National RM 1, in particular, is known for having a beautiful tone. Now if you remove that dowel, how are you going to hold a pair of rolled up socks inside? I thought that was the key to the old time sound.
"truly obnoxious... perfect" What a great tribute to an oddball, but really fun instrument... I feel kind of the same about my low-end resonater mandolin. Not my favorite mandolin... but when you really want to irritate the neighbors it can't be beat.... except maybe by the banjo-mandolin. Bart
Have an Open back Vega Lil Wonder, got it 20 years ago, in a walk in and talk to people store in SF Cal. had a top frosted Remo Head on it , with a finger-rest bald spot in the white stuff, so eventually I bought another head, also a synthetic, Remo renaissance the store gave me a different bridge, one off a flatiron flat top mandolin was a plug and play swap had the offsets and notches cut in it already. some prefer Maple for these, but after the dark one worked so easily, it's a it aint broke no need to fix it situation. did find an 8 hook stamped tailpiece so E strings didn't have so much side force pulling to a narrower 5 pin No Knot. similar type 8 hook TP have been on them from the beginning.., sometimes riveted to the tension ring.
I realize that I am bordering on heresy in this comment but i thought it might be iof interst to those mandolin blues enthusiastswho do not choke when they try to say "banjo". I became interested in enough in the banjo-mandolin that I decided to buy a tenor banjo on Ebay. I bought it as a lark but with a new head, a few parts, and a straightened dowel stick it turns out to be a fine looking and sounding tenor banjo. These are four stringed instruments (not five stringed bluegrass style instruments). It can be tuned the same as a mandolin GDAE but an octave lower so that one doesn't have to learn another set of chord patterns. With its deeper powerful sound and percussive nature I find it to be a very attractive instrument for blues. Like the mandolin it has a somewhat short sustain but I use tremello a lot to draw out notes to fit the nature of most blues. Eddie Eavis is, I think, one of the better practitioners of blues banjo playing and has lots of tunes on Youtube which I think will better illustrate my point. Bart
Sorry... That should have read EDDIE DAVIS.... Here's Eddie Davis playing St Louis Blues. He has a slew of tunes on youtobe. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7InU6...eature=related Bart
I just recently got a 1909 Vega "Whyte Laydie" and I tell ya folks - I'm in love. Its interesting, I was reading all the Banjo-mando stuff in the archives and no one seems to be able to agree about anything regarding the instrument. I haven't had a chance to compare any cause the only one I've seen in person is the one I own but I must have got lucky. It was made before the Titanic sank and somehow it still has all of its parts which are in pristine condition (I even found a few real tortous shell picks in the the case!). It doesn't even have that notorious un-tuning itself-banjo problem. Its loud, unique, a good conversation starter, and it almost plays itself. Its glorious. So regarding the subject of blues: I thought right from the get-go that I'd be playing a lot of blues on my manjo. I suppose its a preference thing but I think it adds a really different color to the genre - I tend to gravitate towards unconventional, experimental stuff so maby its not for everyone (it certainly differs from a mandolin in its ability to sound appropriate in any genre). I've heard of a lot of people who only use 4 strings instead of courses - I see the logic when it comes to bending and vibrato but besides the fact that (to me) it would feel like sacrilege, when you bend a note on double-course strings, either string differs slightly in pitch so you get a tiny bit of dissonance which add a little grit. again its a preference thing but I'm pretty fond of grit, & I don't mind the extra effort to bend and vibrato - it wouldn't be blues if you not suffering a little bit. Plus using four strings sacrafices that totaly unique combination of a banjo timbre and solid tremolo.
.... "(to me) it would feel like sacrilege, when you bend a note on double-course strings, either string differs slightly in pitch so you get a tiny bit of dissonance which add a little grit. again its a preference thing but I'm pretty fond of grit, & I don't mind the extra effort to bend and vibrato - it wouldn't be blues if you not suffering a little bit. Plus using four strings sacrafices that totaly unique combination of a banjo timbre and solid tremolo." I like your attitude about "grit" and blues. I certainly agree more. Bart McNeil
Correction : that last sentence should have read ..... I couldn't agree more. Bart McNeil
I say , I say , I say .. I hear you ..
Slow here lately. Let's resume the conversation. I'd been a blues picker on guitar for decades when I inherited grandpa's ancient, massive banjo-mandolin maybe twentyfive years ago. It's only ID is GUCKERT DUPLEX stamped on the rim. It's at least pre-WWI, maybe pre-1900, and what is probably its original skin head is in fine shape, as is the rest of it. I never thought of it as a blues instrument. It was my first mando and I only used it to learn a few fundamentals before buying my first wood mandolin a decade or so later. Sure, I played blues progressions on it, but it just didn't appeal to me. I may change my tune. Its tone is deeper than my wood mandolins and it's definitely louder. A cloth stuffed under the strings behind the bridge sweetens it some -- I do that with my 5-string and banjo-uke, too. I merely need to develop some blues licks in fifths tuning. Yet another goal...
UPDATE: Since I posted the last I have learned a lot. Grandpa's banjo-mandolin is a Gretsch made probably around 1918. And since I found that Yank Rachell tuned his mando down 3 semitones to play blues in E, I have done the same, taking it to EBf#c# for some nice deep bite. Lower string tension means slightly lower volume -- but on a banjo-mando, who would notice? I do tend to keep a behind-the-bridge muffler so the reverberations don't overwhelm my poor ears. A nice funky instrument, yes!
finally jumped onto a perfect tuner set for my nylon strung banjo uke (in 5th) Gotoh has a miniature 4:1 planetary for Ukes .. took the place of the friction pegs.. For GDAE, I found that high E a Bit too tight, so Ive tuned it FCGD... so playing the C fingerings , I'm In Bb.
